The Other Side of Midnight
by Grav
Summary: James woke to the faint creak of his bedroom door, the scrape of oak on old hinges that hadn't been oiled since the War. There were soft steps on across his bedroom floor, sock feet and a short stride; Ashley, then.


**AN**: I felt I owed James something a bit happier after Friday. It may have got away from me a little bit. There's still cuddling though, so it's not a complete loss.

**Spoilers**: None, but it's kind of a tag for "Of Mice And Men".

**Disclaimer**: Clearly, if they were mine, there would be more cuddling.

**Rating**: Teen

**Characters**: James Watson, Ashley Magnus

**Summary**: James woke to the faint creak of his bedroom door, the scrape of oak on old hinges that hadn't been oiled since the War. There were soft steps on across his bedroom floor, sock feet and a short stride; Ashley, then.

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><p><strong>The Other Side of Midnight<strong>

James woke to the faint creak of his bedroom door, the scrape of oak on old hinges that hadn't been oiled since the War. There were soft steps on across his bedroom floor, sock feet and a short stride; Ashley, then.

"Uncle James," she whispered. "Are you awake?"

"I am," he replied in a voice only slightly softer than his normal tone. He was also, somewhat mercifully, dressed, having gone to the trouble of putting himself back together after Helen retired for the night. Still, he had hardly been expecting company. "Is there a problem?"

"There's a monster in my closet," she said in a matter of fact tone. "I don't know what it is, so I thought I should leave it alone."

"What did it look like?" James asked, and felt a shudder deep in his bones. The EM field was stable, solid as always. There was no way, and yet, there was always that terrifying chance.

"It had a lot of fur," Ashley offered. "And it wasn't very tall."

James exhaled a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. The EM field was stable.

"I think it's asleep," Ashley continued, apparently not noticing that her monster had, momentarily, scared him as well. "It woke me up with its snoring."

"Are you sure you're not opening the door for these things?" James asked, recalling a faery dog and a night spent in the library at the Old City Sanctuary.

"No," said Ashley. "Well, not this time anyway. Can I stay here?"

He hesitated and tried to remind himself that he did not actually _like_ children, but she was close enough now that he could see her eyes, John's eyes, shining in the dark, her face framed by her pale blonde hair and, as always, he had no defence.

"Come on, then," he said, turning back a corner of the coverlet for her. She smiled, and scrambled in underneath it, wedging her ridiculous coelacanth between them as she curled against his side.

"I'm not afraid of monsters, you know," she said after a moment, as though she was worried he would see this as her following a precedent.

"I know," he said. "Though I am curious as to why you didn't go and find your mother."

"This is your house," she pointed out. "Well, it's your house now. So it makes sense that everything that lives here would be afraid of you."

"Is that how it works in Old City?" he asked, amused. "Everything is afraid of your mother."

"Of course," she said. "Mom is kind of scary."

"I'll tell you a secret, something I learned a long time ago," he said, smiling in the dark. "Everything with any sense at all is afraid of Helen Magnus, regardless of whose house they're in."

"Do you think when I grow up I'll be like her?" He could hear her smile in her voice when she spoke. He wrapped an arm around her, and pulled her up in the bed so that her face would rest on his shoulder and not on his longevity device. The coelacanth caught one of its fins in the tubing and she pulled it free, hands deft in the darkness, like a surgeon with a knife.

"I don't know if the world could bear another Helen," James said, "But an Ashley would do nicely I think."

She was quiet for a long moment, and he wondered if she'd fallen asleep when she stirred again. "Uncle James?"

"Yes?"

"Are you my dad?"

She said it so lightly, and it shook him to the core. He thought she would ask when she was older, thought she would ask Helen, not him. And now that she had, he found he wanted very much to lie, which was both ridiculous and pointless, as there was no way in the world Helen would help him maintain the fiction. He took a deep breath, and willed his voice to be even.

"No, dear heart, I'm not," he said, as gently as he could manage.

"I didn't think so," she said in a small voice. "But sometimes I pretend."

"Sometimes I pretend too," he admitted, and that was the truth. He'd pretended all through Helen's pregnancy, and in those first few moments after the delivery, when Helen had fairly shone with happiness. And then again, every time he visited them or they travelled to England.

"I don't think mom pretends," Ashley said.

"Your mother never pretends anything," James said. "She bends the world until she doesn't have to."

"She's not afraid of anything," she said, and James didn't have the heart to correct her.

"Not really," he said instead.

"I'm not afraid of the monsters," Ashley said again. "Sometimes I just don't like the dark."

"You'll get used to it, my dear," he replied. "And then you'll see the most amazing things."

"That's what mom says." Ashley yawned and pressed her face into his shoulder.

"She's a smart woman," James said, stifling his own yawn in his other sleeve.

"Smarter than you?" Ashley said, the smile back in her voice.

"For goodness' sake, don't tell her I told you," James said in a tone that could probably only be described as fussy. "Or I'll never hear the end of it."

"I promise," Ashley said, with all the solemnity a five-year-old could muster, and again, James could see John in every pore of her.

"I do love you, and your mother, very much you know," he said.

"I know," she said. "And we love to you too."

She said it so easily, as though it cost her nothing, yet James knew she meant it with every fibre of her being. He didn't think much of the world sometimes, or at least he didn't think much of progress, but they'd come far enough that growing up to be one's mother was a choice, not a certainty, and that love was less frowned on than it had been in another age.

There was a rather alarming snuffling noise, and then a heavy weight upon his feet as something large and furry lay down across the base of the bed.

"Ashley!" he hissed, more startled than angry or afraid, but she was already asleep.

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><p><strong>finis<strong>

Gravity_Not_Included, June 5, 2011


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